• • • • • • • • •Thought you'd like to know...

Our 13th Annual National Conference ended a few weeks ago, and we thought you'd like to know how it turned out.

This was our largest conference ever, with 438 attendees, 15 presenters, and a larger content offering. Participants enjoyed new seminars on designing and delivering effective instruction, supporting students with severe behavioral problems in general education settings, dropout prevention, and creating capacity for implementing CHAMPS.

A broad range of educators attended. Here’s a partial list: teachers (both general and special ed), principals, assistant principals, behavior specialists and consultants, school psychologists, counselors, school social workers, instructional specialists, instructional coaches, staff developers, paraeducators, district administrators, superintendents, assistant superintendents, Title I coordinators, Safe School specialists, Special Education directors and coordinators, and Student Services personnel.

Thank you!

The entire staff at Safe & Civil Schools would like you to know that we thoroughly enjoyed your visit to Eugene. Thank you for attending the conference and sharing your insights, experience, and stories with us! We’re looking forward to next year’s conference – hope you’ll be there!

• • • • • • • • •Results from the Field

Dallas Independent School District (DISD) has recently announced an increase in the number of schools in the district that have achieved exemplary or recognized status. In addition, the number of schools rated as "academically unacceptable" has decreased over the last three years.

Congratulations to the students, staff, and parents of DISD! Safe & Civil Schools is pleased to be working in your district as we recognize your efforts and achievements!

• • • • • • • • •Releases from Pacific Northwest Publishing

Coming Soon!

CHAMPS Teacher Planner—An easy-to-use spiral-bound Lesson Planner with tips on when and how to use CHAMPS tools.

• • • • • • • • •Upcoming Events

Randy Sprick and Safe & Civil Schools consultants continue to provide presentations across the country. Some of these offer open registration. Registration may be limited and/or involve a fee. Contact information is provided for each on our website.

Summer 2009

Getting Ready

Things to think about before school starts in the fall.

By Randy Sprick

At the beginning of the school year, it is important to revisit your classroom management plan. A good classroom management plan will help you set the stage to deal productively with the range of behaviors, both positive and negative, that students will exhibit in your classroom throughout the year.

As you consider your plan, keep in mind that effective management and discipline strategies are best when they are flexible. View your classroom management plan as a framework rather than an instruction manual—a scaffold that matches your teaching style and satisfies the collective needs of your students while it supports the variety of rituals, routines, rules, consequences, and motivational techniques that you use to ensure that your students are academically engaged and emotionally thriving.

We’ve added a number of user-friendly features to the new second edition of CHAMPS. There are more icons and award certificates, forms you can complete on your computer, more age-appropriate acronyms, and expanded coverage of old and new topics.

One of the enhanced sections pertains to your classroom management plan. While we have always stressed the importance of developing classroom rules and instigating consequences when those rules are violated, in CHAMPS, 2nd Edition, we offer even more suggestions for your consideration.

Develop and Display Classroom Rules

Rules in the classroom are as important as rules of the road—speed limits, stop signs, and right-of-way. Devise three to six rules (no more than that) and make them as specific as possible so that, as you teach the rules, you can provide clear examples of what it means to follow the rule and what it means to break the rule. Inform students that rule violations (unacceptable behaviors) will result in corrective consequences (see next section).

Some guidelines to keep in mind as you develop your rules:

Rules should be stated in positive terms. Say, "Leave food and drinks outside the lab," instead of "No food or drinks in the computer lab."

Rules should be specific and refer to observable behaviors. "Stay on task during all work times" is observable. "Always do your best" is not.

Plan to teach your rules using positive and negative examples. For instance, students may not know what "staying on task" means. You may want to sit at a desk and show them what it looks like to be off task and then, what it looks like to be on task.

Rules must be applicable throughout the entire class period. For instance, "Raise your hand before speaking" may apply only to teacher-directed instruction. You may not expect students to do this when they are working in cooperative groups.

Rules should be posted in a prominent, visible location. Posting rules creates a sense of importance and permanence and allows you to point to them whenever students need a reminder.

Like rules of the road, your classroom rules should serve as the basis for implementing consequences for the most frequent misbehaviors. Ideally then, if students follow the rules, the most likely misbehaviors will not occur. Thus, before you develop your classroom rules, you need to identify the misbehaviors that you think are most likely to occur. Think about your grade level and the typical developmental stage of students in your class. Also consider your schedule, your routines, your procedures for managing work, and so on. And remember to teach students what the rules are and how they can demonstrate that they are following them.

Establish Corrective Consequences for Rule Violations

Before school begins, you will want to have on hand a menu of corrective responses for violations of your classroom rules. If you don’t plan in advance what your response will be, there is a high probability that you may inadvertently reinforce misbehavior with an overly emotional response or by giving too much attention to the misbehaving students.

The following suggestions can help you choose and implement effective corrective consequences that help the student learn that engaging in misbehavior has a cost associated with it.

Plan to implement the corrective consequence consistently. When you don’t implement consequences consistently, it becomes difficult for students to know what is and what is not acceptable behavior.

Make sure the corrective consequence fits the severity and frequency of the misbehavior. All too often, teachers pick a consequence that is so harsh they are unwilling to implement it when the occasion arises.

Plan to implement the consequence unemotionally. You must strive to implement corrective consequences calmly so your reactions do not give any students the idea that they can have power over you by misbehaving.

Plan to interact with the student briefly, and without arguing, at the time of the misbehavior. Simply state the rule and the consequences and move on.

Cultural Competence

Keeping these thoughts in mind as you pre-plan for the first day of school and beyond will put you on the right path to designing an effective classroom management plan. But, there is another concept I want to put into your thinking process, one that is often overlooked—the idea of cultural competence.

In CHAMPS, 2nd Edition, Keba Baldwin and Amalio Nieves wrote a brief but powerful piece on this topic. I believe it is something that teachers should consider if they want to help all of their students succeed.

Culture—those beliefs, customs, practices, and social behaviors that we learn from our families—is a powerful force. Students from other cultures will behave differently in our classrooms. For example, in some cultures children are taught to keep their eyes lowered when talking with an adult. Insisting that students look at you can be confusing and counterproductive.

Successful teachers will find out where their students are from—geographically, economically, and culturally—so that they can respond appropriately when issues arise. In addition, they may even incorporate small but compelling lessons and practices on the cultures they find in their classrooms. Doing so will have the dual benefit of helping students from different cultures feel welcome and helping students from the larger culture recognize the value of diversity.

For more information about this topic, Keba and Amalio suggest these titles:

A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne (1995). Available from aha! Process, Inc.

Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching by Robyn R. Jackson (2009). Available from ASCD.

Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (2nd ed.) by Lisa Delpit (2006). Available from New Press.